Have you ever lived outside of the US?
08-14-2011, 01:11 PM
#11
Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: USA
Posts: 374
Lived in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba from 1972 to 1975. Couldn't go off base into the rest of Cuba so we made the Navy/Marine community HOME.
The best thing that happened to me while there is NO ONE knew I had an identical twin. Not one person asked me "Which one are you?". For the first time in 28 years, I was Ellen. I like to think I was reborn in Cuba. I can imagine this sounds kinda weird to any who hasn't been in that situation but believe me.....it was like a Julie Andrews moment at the top of that mountain.
I went to Puerto Rico, Jamaica and Haiti for R & R when the station aircraft was headed that way. Got to fly in a C-54 that was in the Berlin Airlift until we changed to C-118s...both aircraft were pretty kewl. I thought Van Johnson would come out of the cockpit anytime when I was in the C-54 with the sling seats on the side.
Other than that, we pretty much did stuff like you would in any American town. Speed limit was 25 and we didn't have any fast food places (they now have a traffic light and a McDonald's) and pretty much shopped out of the Sears catalogue. Oh, almost forgot.....called the dump Sears and Roedump. You never knew what you'd find there. And for an old hand dump picker from Maine...it was fertile ground.
The best part of living there is meeting my bestest man friend there in 1972....he and his wife and my dh and I ran together...best friends. They retired to AL in '74 and we retired in '81 to FL. My DH passed in '89 and I was widowed for 6 years when his wife decided she wanted to be on her own. He waited one year (he was really in mourning) before he contacted me.........we've now been married almost 15 years. We would go back to Gitmo in a heartbeat if we could.
The best thing that happened to me while there is NO ONE knew I had an identical twin. Not one person asked me "Which one are you?". For the first time in 28 years, I was Ellen. I like to think I was reborn in Cuba. I can imagine this sounds kinda weird to any who hasn't been in that situation but believe me.....it was like a Julie Andrews moment at the top of that mountain.
I went to Puerto Rico, Jamaica and Haiti for R & R when the station aircraft was headed that way. Got to fly in a C-54 that was in the Berlin Airlift until we changed to C-118s...both aircraft were pretty kewl. I thought Van Johnson would come out of the cockpit anytime when I was in the C-54 with the sling seats on the side.
Other than that, we pretty much did stuff like you would in any American town. Speed limit was 25 and we didn't have any fast food places (they now have a traffic light and a McDonald's) and pretty much shopped out of the Sears catalogue. Oh, almost forgot.....called the dump Sears and Roedump. You never knew what you'd find there. And for an old hand dump picker from Maine...it was fertile ground.
The best part of living there is meeting my bestest man friend there in 1972....he and his wife and my dh and I ran together...best friends. They retired to AL in '74 and we retired in '81 to FL. My DH passed in '89 and I was widowed for 6 years when his wife decided she wanted to be on her own. He waited one year (he was really in mourning) before he contacted me.........we've now been married almost 15 years. We would go back to Gitmo in a heartbeat if we could.
08-14-2011, 01:43 PM
#14
Super Member
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Texas
Posts: 6,395
Not really outside the US as Guam is a US Territory, but definitely a different world than stateside. We were stationed there for 2 years and I loved it. Had to learn to get used to all the meat being frozen when you purchased it. While we were there a stateside dock workers strike kept the BX/commissary from getting in any paper products for what seemed like a really long time. Didn't realize how much paper we use all the time until then. Discovered that typhoons give you lots more advance notice than tornadoes. Actually it was only considered a tropical storm when it went over us, but it did continue to gain strength before hitting the Philippines as a full blown typhoon. By the way, typhoon preparedness includes knocking all the coconuts down out of your trees.
A few amusing incidents - #1 - DH and I were driving around the south end of the island where many locals lived. As we came around a curve we saw a water buffalo tied to a fence, then as we got only a little farther down the road there was a house with a Corvette in the driveway...the juxtaposition of such diverse cultural sights so close together was really striking.
#2 - Driving down the road and having to slow down for the Nissan pickup being used as a gravel truck.
#3 - I decided I'd been on island too long when I was driving back to Andy South (our housing area) from Big Navy (the base at the other end of the island that had the larger BX & commissary) and saw a cop downtown with not yet tanned skin and thought 'that's just wrong'!
A few amusing incidents - #1 - DH and I were driving around the south end of the island where many locals lived. As we came around a curve we saw a water buffalo tied to a fence, then as we got only a little farther down the road there was a house with a Corvette in the driveway...the juxtaposition of such diverse cultural sights so close together was really striking.
#2 - Driving down the road and having to slow down for the Nissan pickup being used as a gravel truck.
#3 - I decided I'd been on island too long when I was driving back to Andy South (our housing area) from Big Navy (the base at the other end of the island that had the larger BX & commissary) and saw a cop downtown with not yet tanned skin and thought 'that's just wrong'!
08-14-2011, 02:43 PM
#15
Super Member
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Piedmont Virginia in the Foothills of the Blue Ridge Mtns.
Posts: 8,562
Seven years in Kaiserlautern and Frankfurt, Germany, as civilians, not military, in the 1970s. My older daughter was born in the Kaiserlautern Stadtische Krankenhaus (Community Hospital.)
Jan in VA
Jan in VA
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